The opponents, Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, have been sentenced in recent years in separate cases for corruption
June 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The national dialogue commission promoted by the president of Senegal, Macky Sall, to address political tensions in the country has proposed changes to the electoral legislation so that prominent opponents Khalifa Sall and Karim Wade, convicted of corruption, can run for president of 2024.
The body, whose work has been boycotted by the opposition, including Ousmane Sonko’s party -recently sentenced to two years in prison for “corruption of youth after being denounced for rape, charges dismissed–, has opted to introduce these changes to include Sall and Wade in the list of candidates.
Wade, of the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS), was sentenced in 2015 for illicit enrichment, while Sall, a former mayor of the capital, Dakar, was sentenced in 2018 for embezzlement. Both denied the charges and stated that they were politicized trials to remove them from public life.
The agreement contemplates that “people who, affected by electoral incapacitation after a conviction, benefit from rehabilitation after an amnesty or grace measure” can “register on the electoral lists, provided it is before the expiration of the period corresponding to the duration of the sentence pronounced”.
On the other hand, the work has resulted in an agreement on the technical aspects for the implementation of the pacts on a census audit, a revision of an article of the Constitution on the statute of the opposition and equitable access for all political entities to the public media in view of the campaign, according to the Seneweb news portal.
The dialogue was launched at the end of May by the Senegalese president, who pointed to a “duty” to meet to “deliberate on common issues, democratic achievements, the norms on which the nation is founded, the rule of law, the Republic and its institutions.
Likewise, he said that “there is no democracy without freedom as there can be no freedom without responsibility”, adding that the national dialogue, which some opposition groups have not attended, “must mark the individual and collective commitment to revive values such as peace, stability and social harmony.
Tensions have risen in recent months, especially as a result of the legal proceedings opened against Sonko, who has denounced judicial persecution. The repression of the protests by his followers have resulted in more than 15 deaths and have led the United Nations to call for “independent and exhaustive” investigations into the incidents.
The opposition has denounced on several occasions that the president of Senegal has plans to run for a third term. The Senegalese Constitution limits the total number of terms to two and an attempt to extend his stay in power could lead to instability, although the president has defended that it would be legal for him to run for office, a point that he has not yet confirmed.
